10 Things WWE Fans Have To Look Forward To In 2018
4. New Japan Pro Wrestling
It's possible to simply bite the bullet that Kenny Omega fires from his hand.
All the things WWE fans anticipate, all those impossible things that aren't forthcoming, can be found in New Japan Pro Wrestling.
Long-term storytelling that rewards the investment of time and emotion. Organic, natural, not utterly lame promos not framed in patently phony contexts, like the beyond-parody opening segment. Swearing. A roster of amazing, unique performers. The classic matches you are right to expect from WWE's deep, talented roster that do not materialise, compromised as they are by simplistic, homogenised over-production and dire, inconclusive finishes designed to get to the next pay-per-view in a schedule so bloated it can only impede originality and freshness. The overwhelming sense that wins and losses matter in a promotion that considers the entire road map and doesn't lazily stumble from one week to the next, overseen by an inattentive madman with a cruel finger removed entirely from the pulse. A company that hinges its future international success on an expansion, and has the balls and booking acumen to pull it off. A company on the rise, as opposed to a company that occupies the top slot with a rancid, apathetic arrogance. A promotion that is cool, not cartoonish. A company that has restored suspension of disbelief versus a company that ritually disembowels it.
Banish preconceptions massaged by a fleet of willfully ignorant dinosaurs afraid that something so ingenious has the potential to make their own contributions to the game extinct.
The hysterical praise leveled at New Japan may be off-putting, to such an extent that it creates a strange siege mentality among the WWE hardcores. We wouldn't go all in if the chasm wasn't as wide as it is.
New Japan Pro Wrestling is as excellent as WWE is awful in 2018.
Bite the bullet.